All I Have to Give
by JinnySkeans
Summary: Anthology series. #6: Sasuke and Sakura. It's not that I can't live without you, just that I don't even want to try.
1. Toxic

Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura

Genre: Romance/Drama

Song: Toxic – Britney Spears

Description: It's nowhere she should be, but everything she needs.

* * *

Their lips meet in a haze of blood and secrecy.

It isn't the first time.

He tastes like he always does; like violence and vigor, like pain and surrender, like mint and greed and starvation. She's drunk on that alone, but like any addict, she needs more, needs to feel him, taste him, memorize him. Keep this side of him all to herself and tucked away in her heart where no one else can find it, until he's ready to be found.

She doesn't speak, ever. It would ruin what they have. Sometimes, though, he does. Not really full sentences, just words. Disconnected and guttural, he murmurs against her mouth between kisses, and she can feel him inside her before he actually is.

"Sakura," he breathes, and her knees weaken, but she's a kunoichi; she doesn't fall. Instead she threads callused fingers through his messy black hair and pulls so he groans, driving his knee between her legs and forcing them apart. The heat isn't enough, the friction isn't enough, nothing is _enough_ until they're the same. Until they're joined in their own twisted, incomprehensible, unique bond in a way he can't have with Naruto, or with Kakashi-sensei, or with his _brother._

No, this is how Sakura distinguishes herself from the other people who hold sway over Uchiha Sasuke. This is how she's carved herself a niche in this life, how she has forged her own connection to Sasuke that the others can't touch. She's left her fingerprints on him, let her nails scratch possessive slashes down the skin of his muscled back, over his ribs, drew blood with her teeth so in some small, transient way, she could say she finally had his attention. Sasuke may have broken his bonds with the others, but he has this one secret. This illicit series of meetings they arrange without really arranging. No one knows.

"I won't come back," he promises against her throat, immediately kissing the skin as he tears, _tears_ her pink medic skirt right off her hips. "You mean nothing to me." His shirt follows, helped along by her impatient hands. "My bonds are broken." He seals his lips to hers as his breathing becomes increasingly ragged.

There's no gentleness, no softspoken words of comfort or affection. But he wouldn't be Sasuke-kun if he was whispering sweet nothings in her ear, and she has loved him, loved him for far too long to let that bother her. This is _Sasuke-kun._ And she loves him enough to indulge her unnatural craving for him, enough to ignore the slow breaking of her heart because _this isn't enough._

In the forest, on the outskirts of Fire Country, a loyal Konoha kunoichi and a rogue former Konoha shinobi meet under cover of moonlight, with no witnesses to their twisted connection but cicadas and stars. And Sakura gives herself wholly, completely, for the millionth time, to a man-boy who will never deserve her, lowers herself to standards the 12-year-old in her would have cringed at, just to get her fix.

But she takes also. Takes from him his conviction, proves that his bond, at least with her, is unbroken. And when he leaves, returns to Oto after they're both sated and spent, it's with the subtle but distinct promise that this isn't the last time.

Still connected.

He's enabling her addiction.

She fixes her skirt and smoothes her hair and returns home a day late from her solo mission. No one suspects a thing. Like all junkies, she knows how to hide it.

* * *

"You tried to kill me, Sasuke-_kun," she snarls, and the once-affectionate suffix springs forward like a filthy curse. Her grip around her kunai tightens, even though the realist in her knows that despite her skill, she's no match for Sasuke. Besides Naruto, nobody is._

"You tried to kill me, too," he points out, his tone light and careless, but something _dangerous_ smolders in his black eyes as he takes a step towards her.

When he's in front of her, she comes back to life. Ignores, for once, her raging attraction to him, her desperate need to be as close to him as possible. Instead, her knee flies up in a motion too fast for him to track, because he wasn't expecting it, and connects with his stomach. He doubles up – she's twistedly satisfied with watching _him_ crumble for once – even as a sharp pain courses inside her, wanting, needing, _demanding_ him.

"Annoying," he spits, and she _hates_ that she's come to regard that as, of all things, a term of _endearment._ She hates that it affects her. She hates that her hatred of him isn't half as strong as her enduring _love._ 16, and a soldier, and nowhere near old enough or ready enough or strong enough to break this unhealthy cycle she's willingly sentenced herself to.

"You're the enemy now, Sasuke-kun," she whispers. "Naruto's gonna kill your crazy uncle. So you can get the hell out of…"

He cuts her off. He's faster than her, always has been, always will be. The next thing she knows, she's slammed on her back on the ground, his hand wrapped around her throat, tight enough to threaten but loose enough where she can breathe. He straddles her with hatred in his eyes – and something else, something she can't quite identify. Something that's eerily close to _betrayal._

"You, too," he hisses, more to himself, than to her. "You would have betrayed me, too. Just like all the _rest._"

His fingers flex and she coughs, twisting her legs, telling herself that she's trying to buck him off when really she just wants to ease the tension that's building inside of her, aggravated by Sasuke's sudden weight and _heat._ The Sharingan glowing in his eyes is memorizing, intoxicatingly, hauntingly beautiful, and if this is how she is to die, looking up such a wickedly beautiful sight, then there are worse ways to go.

Sasuke is going to kill her. In her own operating tent on the eve of the most important battle of her life in this awful war. This once-friend, semi-lover, current-enemy is going to be her demise, and the worst part is, _she still loves him._

"I love you," she snarls, like it's something to be ashamed of. It's her apology, for ever thinking she could be strong enough to put him out of his misery. For adding her name to the list of people Sasuke's ever cared about and had turn on him. Even if it was for her own good, even if she couldn't have done it anyway, he'd seen the deceit in her that day in the valley. He'd seen her ulterior motive, her wicked intent, her _betrayal._ And he'd betrayed her first and multiple times, so why does she feel _guilty?_

Because she needs him, and he knows it.

"I _hate_ you," he tells her, and he means it, and she knows it. She also knows, as he kisses her roughly and she kisses him back, that hatred is scarily close to love.

* * *

The prison cells in Konoha are empty now, except for him. The footsteps from her nin-sandals echo loudly on the damp stone floors as she makes her way slowly, purposefully to his cell at the end of the row, back ramrod straight and eyes full of fire.

He sits on a thin-looking cot behind cast-iron bars, chakra seals tattooed on his wrists, dark eyes regarding her warily, but half-expectantly. He knows about her addiction, after all, knows she couldn't have kept herself away from him in a million years.

She pauses in front of his cell, grips a bar with one hand tightly, and she whispers, "You saved Naruto."

"I didn't do it for _you,_" he says harshly. Even locked up like an animal, he still retains his arrogance, his sense of superiority. He won't bow to her, won't succumb to her, won't bend.

But he also won't break the bond between them, as evidenced by the way he watches her lick her lips. He never did; he never could. And Sakura realizes, slowly, that she is not the only one suffering from a crippling addiction.

"You're a hero," she whispers. "Sasuke-kun…you're…"

He stands up in a movement suspiciously quick for someone whose chakra is being blocked, and his fingers wrap around her hand on the bar, eyes intense even without the Sharingan blazing beautifully in their depths. He's still streaked with blood, some of it his own, some of it Naruto's, some of it hers, most of it Madara's from their penultimate battle the day before. Red soaks his wide-collared shirt relic of the Uchiha Clan, smears into his pale, scar-riddled skin and dries in his messy hair, and every inch of him is menacing, except the hesitation.

Bending, but never breaking.

"Why me?" he demands of her, angry and frustrated and something _else._ "Why are you…you could have _anyone._"

"I don't _want_ anyone else," she says, aggravated with his supposition that she could just _move on_ from him. Like she hasn't tried that already. Her addiction's too strong for that now. "It's always been _you,_ Sasuke-kun. You're a _hero._"

"I'm a _killer,_" he corrects her roughly, even as he kisses her through the bars. She yanks her hand free of him and seizes the wide collar of his shirt, pulls him as close to her as the prison bars will allow. "A _traitor,_" he adds, but she ignores him. Keeps kissing him. Now that she's got her fix, she wants _more._ "You could have anybody, you stupid girl. That Iwa nin. That freak from Gai's team. Inuzuka, Nara, _the dobe._ Why _me?_"

"I could ask you the same question," Sakura breathes against his mouth, and for once, she feels like she's swimming, while he's the one just treading water. All of a sudden, everything makes sense to her, and he's stuck playing catch-up in an ironic, satisfying role reversal. "All the girls in the world, and you picked _me._"

"I did not," he snarls, even as his hands disagree, seizing her soft pink hair, and while there is frustration in every move he makes, there is also something else, something that wasn't there before. Restraint. Control. Like he cares whether or not he hurts her, unlike all the other times they've met up in the past, for sex and connection.

But Sakura sees clearly where he can't.

Sakura's a recovering addict as well, and can recognize the symptoms.

When he kisses her again, their faces brushing against ice-cold iron bars in the darkness of the Konoha prison tunnels, his bloodstained fingers tremble as they wrap around her clean ones in a shaky, hazy, tentative promise of something _more._ And even if he's kissed her a thousand times in the past, this is the one that Sakura chooses to remember as the first. This one, tinged with gentleness and something so uniquely _Sasuke._

* * *

She isn't cured of her addiction. Neither is he.

But they don't need to be, she decides, a satisfied smile on her lips as she lets the sunlight warm her face. Not when he's still asleep, muscled arm wrapped around her waist on their enormous bed, sun streaming through the blinds and bouncing off the cream-colored walls they spent a whole Saturday painting. Green eyes admire the glittering diamond on her left hand, the way it catches the light; it's the only thing Sasuke will let her sleep in, these days. The only thing she will never take off.

What was once unhealthy is now healthy. What was once unsatisfying now is _enough._ She has him, he has her, they have their fixes and they have their lives.

Sasuke stirs beside her, and she feels the light stubble on his chin as it brushes her shoulder, as he kisses the corner of her mouth in a slow, lazy good morning. And she can't fight the smile as she releases the toxicity of the past, and embraces a new, healthy, beautiful feature full of promise.

Addicted and in love.

* * *

**note..** trying my hand at an anthology this time around. oneshots of different pairings (y'alls know i'ma focus on sasuke/sakura, i think it's pretty obvious by now) and different genres, dark and gritty like this one but also humor and angst and romance and friendship and everything. and the kicker? each chapter's based off a different song from backstreet boys pandora. **NOT A SONGFIC, THOUGH. I'll just give you the song that inspired it, you can listen to it on your own.** I'm straightedge when it comes to the rules of this site. this first one? the incomparable miss britney spears and toxic.

can't stop reading xfucktheglasses, thank her for being an overall badass all over the sasu/saku fandom. holla at her work.

love y'all. let me know if you liked it :)

xoxo Daisy :)


	2. This I Promise You

Pairing: Sasuke and Sakura

Genre: Romance

Song: This I Promise You - NSYNC

Description: It's the perfect wedding, with the perfect bride and the perfect groom, in the perfect church with 300 perfect guests. But Sakura and Sasuke have never been one for perfection.

* * *

Sasuke sucked in air sharply between his teeth, and tried not to let his emotions show on his face. But he'd been engaged to Sakura Haruno for an entire year now, and was about an hour from getting married, so there were bound to be fissures in his prized self-control. And now, standing before him looking more dazzling than any woman ever had in white and laces, it took him a solid ten seconds to school his features back into his default of practiced apathy.

"Isn't it bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?" he quipped dryly, but he hesitated when he saw the terror on Sakura's face. "What's wrong?" he asked instead.

She bit her pink-painted bottom lip and looked up at him with smoky-rimmed eyes that sparkled with tears. "I…Sasuke do you think this is…"

His blood froze in his veins, his stomach dropped out beneath him like an elevator shaft, and it was only thanks to years of honed self-control that he didn't hang his head. This was it, he realized. After a three-year relationship, two years of living together, and one year of engagement, Sakura had finally come to her senses. Sakura had finally realized she was way too good for him, and she was going to leave him at the altar. With one hour to spare, she was going to do the right thing, and break his heart.

He said nothing. His tuxedo felt tight and scratchy, constricting all of a sudden, a cruel and hideous reminder that he was all dressed up with no place to go. He became hyperaware of the (expensive) plane tickets to Paris in his pocket that Sakura didn't yet know about, the honeymoon he'd secretly, quietly planned months ago, when she mentioned with stars in her eyes how much she wanted to see the City of Lights. They were supposed to leave tonight, but it looked like he would be taking that flight alone, and…

He loosened his tie and leaned against the doorframe, studying her, trying to commit this beautiful image to memory so he would have something to cling to in the wretched coming years, of how he nearly had everything he wanted, only to lose it at the last minute. Story of his life.

Sakura swallowed and tried again. "Doesn't this feel…wrong to you?"

The atmosphere in Sakura's changing room was tense, and charged. For the first time in a long time, Sasuke couldn't figure out what was going on in his fiancee's head.

"Wrong," he echoed quietly.

"This wedding," she clarified, without really clarifying. God, if she was going to dump him, she could at least have the decency not to drag it out. "Sasuke we put so much time and money in this, and everyone's here, we have 300 guests, it's like the whole _city_ showed up. And there's an article in the _paper,_ and there's _photographers_ we didn't even hire, all because it's you and me and that somehow matters to Konoha. And our friends went and took over everything and made this huge, when you and I really wanted something small. And…Sasuke, this doesn't feel like _us,_ does it?"

So…she wasn't breaking up with him? No. Relief coursed through him like oxygen, and he relaxed slightly, attempting to figure out why Sakura was so upset. It seemed like she was dissatisfied with the way their initial idea – to have a simple, no-frills wedding – had blown up into something grandiose and commercial. And Sasuke could more than agree with that; he would have been plenty happy with running down to the courthouse one afternoon, signing a paper with a judge, kissing Sakura in front of nobody in jeans and a T-shirt and giving her his mother's wedding ring. It would have taken maybe an hour. Practical, simple.

"I thought you wanted a big wedding," he said gently. Didn't every girl?

She sighed. "Everybody wanted me to have a big wedding," she said, collapsing into the burgundy cushioned chair in front of the mirror, dabbing at her damp eyes so as not to smudge the makeup Ino had artfully applied. "They wanted…you know. Us finally getting married to mean something. But I didn't need this huge, ridiculous celebrity wedding for that to mean something to me. I just want _you."_

"Hn," he chuckled in agreement, before stepping into the room. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, illuminating the soft pink curls that fell like water down her bare back. Her gaze was far-off and dreamy, the color in her cheeks high as he joined her at her makeup mirror. They stared at their reflections, and Sasuke suddenly saw _exactly_ what she was talking about.

A perfect bride and a perfect groom were reflected back at him, but the circumstances – while perfect – weren't _theirs_ anymore. His efforts to please her, and her efforts to please everyone else, brought them to this point. To _enduring_ their own wedding, with all the photographers and all the newspapers and all their obnoxious, controlling friends calling the shots.

And today – rightfully – was supposed to be about them.

It was time to take control of his own wedding.

"We don't have to do this," he said quietly.

She looked up at him with fear on her face again. "You…you don't want to get married?" she asked, looking petrified, and he realized he was not alone in fearing that his significant other was going to bolt. The thought both frustrated and amused him, and he shook his head.

"Not like this," he murmured, offering her his hand. "Let's go."

"Go where?" she asked, a confused smile unfolding on her face as she let him pull her to her feet. "Sasuke they're waiting for us."

"Let them wait."

"But…"

"We've got an hour."

* * *

The courthouse was packed that day, but Sasuke had connections, and he highly doubted that anybody who saw Sakura that day dolled up like the perfect bride she never would be wanted to refuse her _anything._ So they pulled a few strings, and found a judge available who could run through the wedding ceremony with them.

They sat together in the wooden aisle seats in the courtroom with six other anxious, would-be couples, and the look on Sakura's face was breathtaking, between her elation at getting married and her amusement at how things were happening.

"My mother's gonna kill me," she giggled.

"That's nothing," Sasuke scoffed. "Think of what _Tsunade's_ gonna do to you."

"I'd be more worried about what she's gonna do to _you,_" she teased, elbowing him gently in the side.

"Nobody needs to know about this," she added. "It can be…you know. Our little secret. If they don't know about what we're doing, then they can't get mad at us. I think this was one of your better ideas, actually."

The more Sasuke thought about it, the more his own actions made sense. Marriage was about staying true to yourselves, and Sasuke and Sakura, at their very core, were not the type of people to have an enormous, publicized, talked-about wedding like the one that had been planned for them. They were practical, and they kept their romantic life largely private; reciting romantic, heartfelt vows in front of a crowd of people who barely knew them, and wanted to be there only for the appeal of watching _Sasuke_ and _Sakura_ finally get married simply wasn't _them._

Doing this – eloping before the big ceremony – was exactly the right move. Now, they could share their most important moment together, with nobody else significant to watch them. Just between them, the way their love had always been. He'd loved her forever in secret stares and subtle, drifting touches and quiet gestures, gentle promises exchanged in kisses and smiles, and always between them, and nobody else.

And they could go through the motions with the actual wedding afterwards, suffer through the pictures and the crying and the applause and the celebrity _after_ their secret nuptials had taken place. And nobody besides the judge, the handful of nervous couples, and them would ever know that they would be _officially_ married at 1:00 pm in a busy courtroom, when they showed up to their 1:30 wedding in Konoha's grandest church.

Secret. Clandestine. Private. Practical. And _them._

"Uchiha, Sasuke and Haruno, Sakura," the judge called out from his roster, and Sakura let out a stifled squeal of excitement as she hopped up to her feet, dragging him along with her. Amused at her sudden enthusiasm for this dressed-down ceremony, when she'd been full of nothing but consternation and worry at the princess fairy tale wedding thrown in her honor, he followed her up through the courtroom while the bailiff opened the little wooden door for them to pass through.

It took five minutes.

* * *

"Where _are_ they?" Ino moaned, peeking through the door at all the guests already assembled in the church. People were growing restless, milling about, chatting amongst themselves, all of them caught up in this newest scandal. Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, both mysteriously vanishing minutes before their own wedding. "I'm gonna _kill_ her for doing this to me!"

"It's…it's n-not your w-w-wedding, Ino," Hinata reminded her gently. Both of them were dressed in apricot chiffon, their hair in elegant updos, waiting impatiently to begin their procession down the aisle ahead of a bride, who didn't look like she was coming.

"I threw it together, didn't I?" Ino snapped, dialing her best friend's number on her cell phone for the fortieth time. "She _owes me._"

"Sorry we're late!" a feminine voice sang out happily from behind them, and Ino whipped around to find a happy, flushed-looking Sakura rushing in the back door of the church, a smirking Sasuke in tow.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Ino thundered, flying at her best friend's throat, only to be restrained by the other bridesmaids. "We were supposed to start _an hour_ ago! Where the hell have you been? Why are you trying to ruin this perfect day?"

"I was just making this perfect day a little more perfect," Sakura insisted, with a secret glance at Sasuke, whose smirk only widened. He looked so irritatingly pleased with himself that Ino just _knew_ she'd been had, somehow. But the guests were getting impatient, and it was time to rock and roll. She would be the maid of honor at the best wedding in the universe, _come hell or highwater._

"So you're ready, then?" Karin asked, letting Ino go when she'd finally calmed down. "I think Tsunade's gonna blow a _gasket._"

"Yes, we're ready," Sakura said, kissing Sasuke on the cheek. "See you at the altar!"

"Annoying," he murmured, with so much sickening fondness that Ino nearly contracted diabetes. With that, he strode casually through the doors of the church and made his way carelessly, unhurriedly down the aisle like nothing was wrong.

"Let's go, people!" called out Kurenai, the wedding planner. "All right, start with the bridesmaids. Single file, ladies, first Hinata…all right, good. Tenten, you're up next, great, great, looking good…go on in, Karin, keep it evenly spaced!"

"I _know_ something happened," Ino hissed to Sakura, hastily fixing her best friend's veil so it partially concealed her features. "I know you did _something,_ and you're _going_ to tell me what it is. Why the hell did you let Sasuke see you before the wedding? It's bad luck!"

"You talk too much," Sakura said back, laughing. "Thank you, Ino. Thank you for this perfect wedding."

Ino softened. Her best friend looked way too pretty to harass at the moment. "Whatever, Forehead." Then, with a winning smile, knowing she was being held out on but _determined_ to see this through to the end, Ino Yamanaka, the glorious maid of honor, began her trek down the aisle to Canon in D.

Full house, gorgeous groom, handsome groomsmen, lovely bridesmaids, and a beautiful bride: Sakura would be thanking her for years to come.

* * *

The church really was beautiful, Sakura had to admit. Any girl would be lucky to have a wedding like this one. The lights were low, the music soft and subtle as she made her way down the aisle on her father's arm, a bouquet of lilies in her hands, candles lit in every window, flowers hung from every pew and threshold. Ino had great taste, she really did.

_I'm getting the wedding of every little girl's dreams,_ she thought, unable to fight the satisfied smile on her face at the irony of it all, _and it's the LAST THING I want._

Sasuke stood up at the altar waiting for her, looking as casual and careless as ever, smirking as he watched her approach him. His tie was loose, his shirt untucked, his hair tousled by the wind since they'd run over here from the courthouse, and nobody in the church knew that he was _already hers._

Nobody knew that when Kizashi Haruno placed her hand in that of Sasuke's and quietly joined her mother in the front pew, that when the vows were recited, that when nobody _dared_ to protest their marriage thanks to her maid of honor's terrifying influence, that Sasuke and Sakura were already married. Nobody knew that the kiss they shared in front of a busy church was not their first, but their second as husband and wife.

So she would let everyone have this perfect wedding. She would let them cheer and whoop and holler and take pictures and blow it up into a big deal if it made them happy, and it certainly seemed to. Because nobody would ever knew that Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha were married in a busy, overcrowded courtroom minutes before the enormous church ceremony took place, in a practical, no-frills ceremony as down-to-earth as they were.

The wedding march played like a victory tune while all of their guests applauded in a standing ovation that would have made any bride blush; her bridesmaids were crying, Naruto was crying, her mother was crying, her father was crying, but Sakura was way too happy to cry as Sasuke's fingers threaded through hers, and he gave an arrogant smirk to the entire congregation that suggested he knew a secret, and wasn't telling.

She'd never been more in love than at this moment, in a beautiful wedding gown she hated, in too-expensive shoes, the imperfect bride in the fairy tale wedding she never wanted.

* * *

**note..** thanks for all the reviews and favorites and alerts for chapter one! it's definitely a challenge, this anthology, but i'm having a good time with it and i'm glad to see you guys are, too.

secret: "this i promise you" was my wedding song. my husband made a huge deal about it like he always does, but he saw it my way eventually, like he always does if he knows what's good for him.

and yeah, i never saw sakura and sasuke as the type to have a grandiose wedding. they seem too practical for that. so i wanted to let them get married in a way that was uniquely them, kind of like thumbing their noses at everyone who insists they have this huge elaborate ceremony even if it's ridiculously out of character for sasuke to behave like a disney prince. this way, everyone in konoha can think that they saw THE MOMENT sasuke and sakura were married, all while they secretly kept that moment to themselves, the way it should have been. make sense?

let me know if you liked it ;) love you, guys.

xoxo daisy :)


	3. Fighter

Characters: Sakura-centric, Team 7.

Genre: General

Song: Fighter - Christina Aguilera

Description: On Sakura, and how some flowers grow tall and beautiful on burnt soil.

* * *

Sakura would be lying if she said she was happy.

She's not. Not all the way, anyway. There are times when she is, of course. Times when she smiles and laughs freely and with no shadows to chase away her gladness. Times when she forgets who she is and where she is and why things aren't whole.

But those times pass, and the hole in her heart reminds her what she's missing.

She's the only genin flying solo at the moment.

Ino's team is still fully intact, and even if she's learning medical ninjutsu with Sakura and much of their time is spent together, Sakura is forced to watch and wait while Ino heads off on countless missions with Shikamaru, Chouji, and Asuma-sensei.

She knows why she must stay. Kakashi-sensei is in ANBU and Naruto is studying sage jutsu with Jiraiya-sama and Sasuke-kun is…well, he's off somewhere making all the wrong choices. She knows that she's waiting but she's not useless anymore. She knows that all this time she's spent in Konoha has been put to good use, and with Tsunade-shishou and Shizune-sempai, she's becoming a superb kunoichi. She's grateful, she really is. Chunin. _Chunin._ It seemed so long ago when that was just a pipe dream.

But it's impossible to chase away the melancholy that settles in when she watches Ino's team leave through the Konoha gates. They move fluidly, like a family. Familiar with each other, joking around and teasing each other and arguing. It's hard to tune out the ghostly echoes of "dobe" and "teme" and she is always forced to remember what it felt like to stand between _her_ boys the way Ino stands between hers. Like she was immortal. Special. No one could touch her, and she was needed.

So she doesn't tell anyone how much it aches to know that those times are long gone for her. She tells no one about her burgeoning loneliness, even popular as she is among the villagers and her comrades and friends. She tells no one about the hole in her heart, and she watches Ino's team leave from the shadows.

There are no tears in her eyes as she bids them farewell, silently wishing that her boys were back so they could go on missions, too, so they could be the envy of lonely people as they left four-strong and solid. Instead she smiles bravely, and reminds herself that there's a reason for all of this. There's a reason this is all happening.

Someday, they will come back. All of them. She believes that, truly. She has to.

So Sakura waits. And Sakura trains. And Sakura learns. And Sakura grows.

And won't they be surprised.

* * *

Her parents don't understand her.

It comes to a head one day, one hot summer day when she staggers home nearly in pieces. Her arm's dislocated, she's bleeding from a hundred different cuts and a heavy bruise over her eye makes it difficult to see, and Kaasan and Tousan don't understand why she's _smiling._

"Get in here, Sakura," sighs Mebuki, tired of having to clean her daughter's wounds and tolerate the way she smiles. Sakura knows her mother can't understand the morbid joy she finds in her training. She knows nobody can.

She lugs herself into the bathroom without any help, sits on the edge of the tub and starts piecing herself back together while her mother prepares the bandages. She's low on chakra, but that's normal for the end of the day. She's got enough to shove her shoulder back into place and to heal some of the deeper cuts. Everything else should be fine on its own.

Mebuki's got tears in her eyes as she dabs ointment to a gash on the inside of her arm.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asks softly, like she doesn't already know. Like she doesn't already see the way her pain is interpreted by her parents, who have only ever wanted her to be happy.

Happy in a way she can't be anymore, now that she's a kunoichi in every sense of the word.

"What's _wrong?_" Mebuki counters, her eyes narrowing into furious slits. "My daughter's come home for the umpteenth time looking closer to death than she did the day before, and I am _tired_ of this blood all over my bathtub. _What_ are you training so hard for?"

"I know you can't understand it, Kaasan," she says quietly, serenely. They've had this talk a thousand times. Sakura can't begrudge her parents their disapproval, but it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change her mind, or her resolve. It only pushes her further.

"This is your purpose now, is it?" Mebuki says stiffly. She ties the bandage too tight around her arm, but Sakura doesn't flinch. "To push yourself past your limits like you've got anything to prove? Your whole life, contingent on the decisions of three men who _left you behind?_"

It stings worse than the ointment healing her wounds, but pain is a teacher, and Sakura knows she's still got much to learn.

"You're throwing your life away, Sakura. Throwing away the life your father and I gave you, and for what? They aren't coming back. You're clinging to a childish _daydream_ where Naruto returns and Sasuke returns and Kakashi-san takes you all on fun adventures again, but those days are _over._ And your continued obsession with _that boy…_" Sakura knows that in the Haruno household, Sasuke-kun's name is _that boy_ screamed in differing trebles of revulsion, "…you're missing out on _life,_ Sakura, waiting around for him! He doesn't love you! He doesn't care about you! And that is _his fault,_ but you're wasting your life pretending like he's going to come back here and be with you!"

"This isn't about that!" she protests, fighting back for the first time. She _hates_ the way they speak about Sasuke-kun, but more than that, she hates the way her parents constantly misinterpret her motive. This isn't about him. This is about her. And Team 7. And _everything._ "I don't have any illusions about Sasuke-kun, I know who and what he is! This is about _me._"

And Mebuki explodes.

"_What do you have to prove?_" she demands, irate. Blonde hair whipping back and forth as she paces around the bathroom, brittle hands clenched into iron fists. "If not for them, what is this all _for?_ I won't bury my daughter, Sakura. Do you understand me? And you're working yourself _to death._ Do not ask me to lay my only child in the ground because you wanted to prove your strength to people who don't deserve to see it anyway. Do not ask me to."

As Sakura packs up her things that evening, she wonders if this is how Sasuke-kun felt, at the end.

Like nobody could understand him or the way he thought or the way he _was,_ so he had to leave. Not in anger or hate, not in bitterness or regret, just because it had to be done. Because the people who loved him couldn't relate to him.

"_I love you with all my heart!"_

Sakura meant it that night. She knows Sasuke-kun _knew_ she meant it. But she didn't understand him, and he knew that, too.

Her mother protests her move, but her words fall on deaf ears. Her father just stands and shakes his head because his little girl's all grown up at age fifteen and neither one of them can reach her anymore. And Sakura can't bring them anymore pain.

She's starting to understand Sasuke-kun more and more, she realizes, as she locks herself inside the tiny, one-bedroom apartment near Hokage Tower.

* * *

She comes to the memorial stone for all the wrong reasons.

Not because she has anyone to mourn there. Not yet. Maybe the Third Hokage, but besides that, she hasn't had to bury any loved ones, not yet. She's one of the lucky ones.

Still, though, she mourns. She mourns the death of what could have been, if things were different, if life was fair. She mourns her boys, who are thousands of miles away and who probably don't even miss her.

And she mourns her teacher, who's thrown himself back into ANBU, and she misses him badly. This is where he spent so much time, so this is where she feels closest to him.

She also hates him a little bit.

Because he trained Sasuke-kun personally, didn't he? And he focused on Naruto. And Sakura?

There was nothing in him for her. No secret jutsu he could trust her with, no important task on a mission. _Guard the client, Sakura. Good chakra control, Sakura. Stand back, Sakura; we'll take care of this._

To think she used to _enjoy_ that. To think she used to feel some overinflated sense of self-importance, because _she_ was the one with the most crucial job. _She _was the one who had to protect the client.

(Of course, it was years before she realized Kakashi-sensei only wanted her out of the way. Years before she realized just how great a burden she had been for her teacher and her boys.)

Sakura misses her sensei and she's also frustrated, because he left her with nothing.

And she's also grateful to him, too.

Because she woke up at last. She realized back then, at thirteen, that she would have to find help on her own, that it wasn't going to come to her from the great copy-nin. She realized back then that she needed a teacher who could devote time to _her._

She's grateful she found Tsunade-shishou. Grateful that Kakashi-sensei couldn't find anything in her worth cultivating, because she found someone who _did._

(But she misses him anyway. Because in the end, he taught her the most important lesson of all:

To never abandon your teammates.)

Too bad she was the only one who listened.

Too bad he broke his own rule.

* * *

Sakura eats ramen at Ichiraku's once a week.

She comes alone, never with others, and she sits on her usual stool. This is where she comes to feel closest to Naruto.

Bizarrely, she is angriest at him.

Sasuke-kun left and he took her heart with him and she's so _angry_ about that. Because it isn't fair. His decision – selfish and impulsive – was the catalyst that led to the destruction of their team. Because once he left, then Kakashi-sensei was out, too. He went back to ANBU and he's in ANBU now and what incentive did that give Naruto to stick around?

Naruto left, too. Of course he did. It's been two years already.

And she's angriest at him. Because he's supposed to be there. In Konoha. With her. Her friend, her eternal annoyance. Constantly demanding dates from her in his artless way, even knowing that her heart belongs to his best friend. Smiling too wide at her, talking too loud, eating too quickly. Protecting her, and loving her the way nobody else ever has or ever could.

She keeps her face completely clear as she eats her ramen, but inside, she practices what she's going to scream at Naruto when she sees him again.

"You should have been here! You should have stayed!"

"I expected it from _them,_ but _you?_"

"I thought you loved me. I thought you cared about me and this stupid team."

"HOW COULD YOU?"

But every week, she eats his favorite flavor of ramen and glares at an empty stool until her eyes hurt. Because Sasuke-kun left and Kakashi-sensei left and that didn't destroy her, but Naruto left, too, and nothing is _fair._

* * *

"D'you want to get dinner sometime?" asks the good-looking chunin captain lying on the bed. He tilts his head and smiles at her. He's very handsome. A good shinobi. Loyal and strong; he's made her laugh every day he spent in the hospital, recovering from a knee operation.

She returns the smile but none of his affections.

"Thank you, but I'm going to have to pass," she says, as politely as she can. Because she knows from experience that when you let someone down, it has to be gently.

(Remembering Sasuke-kun's style – knocking her out and leaving her on a bench – doesn't bring her heartache anymore, just _anger._)

"Look, Sakura-san," he begins, like he's going to change her mind, and she looks at him because you should always look someone in the _eye_ when you break their heart, rather than _the back of their head,_ "I know about…like, your team and all."

Oh, does he? She sighs. Everyone thinks they know, but they don't.

"And I know you were really into Uchiha Sasuke and everything…"

In the end, that's all _anyone_ knew about her.

"But…I don't know. I just think…I'm gonna come right out and say it. He doesn't _deserve_ you."

"That's very kind of you, Nakamura-san," she says quietly, activating her Mystical Palm Technique to examine the healing tendons in his knee. Evasively.

"You're so great, Sakura-san. You're so pretty and smart and nice…Uchiha's an idiot for ever leaving somebody like you."

In the end, she's grateful to the good-looking chunin captain lying on the bed. Because he tilts his head and smiles at her. He's very handsome. A good shinobi. Loyal and strong; he's made her laugh every day he spent in the hospital, recovering from a knee operation.

(Too bad, though. Too bad you can hate the way somebody treats you, hate the way somebody leaves you with nothing and no one and not a single promise, hate the way somebody takes away all your options and you still have the strength to love them. To love them and to wait.)

She doesn't have any place she can go to feel closest to Sasuke-kun, but that's okay, because he's the biggest part of her heart. So she takes him with her everywhere.

* * *

Her skin is shredded.

Sakura eyes her hands curiously, almost in wonder. She can't feel the pain anymore. Numbness has set in. She should stop soon.

Her knuckles are bloody and her chest is heaving and there's no leather left to her gloves to cushion the blow, but there's also a smirk on her face. A smirk that twists pretty pink lips into something triumphant and dangerous, as she looks out across the training field.

Or rather, what _used_ to be a training field, before she and Tsunade-shishou took it over.

Her mentor wears an identical smirk. One of pride, and satisfaction. She stands off to the side with her arms folded across her impressive bosom, surveying her apprentice's work with tacit approval. The dust hasn't yet settled on the scene. It will take hours to clear the field of wrecked tree trunks and shattered boulders, but for a few seconds, she will allow her student to enjoy this terrible wreckage that she created with her _bare hands._

And enjoy it, Sakura does.

She takes a minute to enjoy what she's accomplished, even with so very far to go. She's fifteen now. Fifteen, and with strength to rival her beauty, and with courage to eclipse all of it. She's a medic-nin, now. She's got talent that not even her boys can touch, and she's useful, and she's the _furthest thing_ from dead weight. She's a kunoichi now. She's made it. She's here.

Slowly, summoning nonexistent energy to her exhausted limbs, she raises herself up to her full height. She hasn't seen Naruto or Sasuke-kun for years now, but she knows they'll be much taller than her. Still, she carries herself well, always has, since Tsunade-shishou stomped that frightened, failing little coward out of her in a few quick, ruthless training sessions. She has much to thank her mentor for.

Much to thank Naruto and Sasuke-kun for. Without them leaving, she doesn't think she would ever have had the strength and the courage to get the help she so desperately needed. She'll thank them, too, when they come home. (She knows they will.)

And her smirk widens, because there's another person she owes this success to.

Herself.

Because she fucking earned it.

* * *

**note..** because i'm tired as shit of the manga, and sakura is constantly underrepresented. i'm bored, okay? with the whole hashirama/madara thing. and the whole all-encompassing naruto and sasuke extravaganza. I LIKE SAKURA. MORE SAKURA.

ugh.

LOVE YOU.

xoxo Daisy


	4. Don't Wanna Lose You Now

Pairing: Sasuke and Sakura

Song: Don't Wanna Lose You Now - Backstreet Boys

Genre: Hurt/Comfort and Romance

Description: There's only one road in and out of Konoha.

* * *

He wondered if he was doing the right thing.

It was something he struggled with these days, trying to do right. It had been so long since he weighed his decisions based on whether or not it was ethically, morally right or wrong. The last few years of his life, he'd done things both great and terrible in pursuit of what he believed was his destiny. He hadn't had to worry about pesky things like right and wrong back then.

It felt cowardly. It certainly felt cowardly. To have requested a secret mission from Tsunade. To have kept it quiet from his friends and his teammates. To pack for it in the dead of night while everyone slept.

He was leaving. A recon mission in Oto; it was expected to take a year, at the least.

He knew it would look bad, when everyone found out. He knew it would look like he was growing dissatisfied, bored, _impatient_ with life back in Konoha after the war. He knew there would be anger amongst his peers; after devoting so much time to earning back their trust, what was the point of his reintegration if he was just going to leave again?

Sasuke decided they didn't need to know the truth: that he felt at home in Konoha. That he loved being back among the sunshine, the perennial warmth, under the trees. That he cared about his friends and wanted them to be happy.

And thinking of one painfully pretty medic-nin – the only one in their age group who remained wary of him – he knew that the only way to make her happy was to go.

He slipped his katana into its sheath and ignored the fissures in his heart. Leaving again. It was the right thing to do.

* * *

She'd never quite gotten over what had happened between them.

That was Sasuke's primary incentive for taking this mission. Sakura's inability to trust him the way the others did, the skittish way she looked at him from a distance, like she expected him to snap…the way her smiles in his direction were fleeting and forced. He'd had to make amends to everyone for his decisions, even if they were never personal, and everyone, from Naruto to Kakashi to Tsunade, and to the rest of the rookies who'd survived the war, had welcomed him back with open arms.

Except Sakura, who held him at arm's length.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed. Sakura had always been special to him in a unique, difficult-to-define way, and coming back to Konoha, she'd been one of the people he was looking forward to reconciling with the most. (Maybe the one he owed the most to.)

But while she accepted his return and reassimilation into the Konoha shinobi ranks, she was clearly uncomfortable around him, a discomfort that didn't seem to ebb. She avoided him whenever possible, and on missions, spoke mainly to Naruto, Sai, and Kakashi, or whoever else was accompanying them. Any conversation between them was stilted and abrupt, often leading to arguments (he couldn't remember _ever_ being on her bad side back when they were children, and found he didn't like it one bit) and she _never_ sparred with him, at team practices. Aside from seeing her fight in a few scuffles on their many missions, he had yet to discover what Sakura could actually do, after years of separation.

Granted, he understood her uneasiness. He'd tried to kill her, more than once, and as a teammate, that was the ultimate betrayal. It sickened him to remember the depths he'd sunk to, the madness he'd accepted in pursuit of his empty goal. He could still recall what her slim, smooth throat felt like crushed under his hand, the wide green eyes reflecting betrayal as she watched his Chidori explode to life…

He knew that Sakura was a kunoichi now and that she'd probably seen much worse, had had much closer calls, but he also knew that, once upon a time, he'd been important to her. And there was no easy way of moving on from the way he'd tried to violently shred their childhood bond.

But understanding her discomfort didn't make it any less painful.

He was growing more and more attached to her by the day, even as she kept her shields up, and it was only after he'd realized how badly he'd always wanted her in his life that he knew what he had to do. She feared him. She didn't trust him. And he wanted her to be happy, in the end, at the cost of everything.

The path out of Konoha was a familiar one. It had been five years since the last time he'd made this journey, and much had changed since then. He was taller now, older, a full-grown man this time around. There was no anger or bitterness driving his decisions, nothing but surety of purpose. His steps were slow and measured as he inhaled the summer scents of his home, so he could remember them in the months to come when he missed it, when he missed them, when he missed _her._

He knew he would think of her the way he thought of her now. With longing, with regret, that there had to be a consequence to all the things he'd done before. That things couldn't be allowed to go back to the way they were when she smiled at him without fear or restraint; his reintegration had come so easily to him, and after every terrible choice he'd made, it wouldn't be fair if _everything_ was restored to him.

He didn't deserve her anymore, and she didn't deserve the pain his presence was causing her.

Sasuke shouldered his knapsack as he passed through the village gates. There was no one to try and stop him _this_ time around; remembering the scene from five years ago, where a little lovely kunoichi had screamed her love by a concrete bench, he was glad that that bench had been destroyed during Pein's invasion. He didn't need a physical reminder of the way he'd callously cast off the love and trust of the sweetest girl in the world.

But he'd only made it a few yards onto the dirt road that led out of Konoha when he detected the presence of another shinobi.

Years of a hard shinobi lifestyle had honed his senses carefully, made him wary of almost everything, but once he recognized the familiar chakra signature, bright and shiny and warm, his sudden grip on the hilt of his sword loosened and fell.

"You shouldn't be here, Sakura," he murmured, nostalgia hitting him like a brick to the back of the head.

She flashstepped onto the road in front of him from her place in the shadows of the trees. It was one of the very few times since his return a year ago, when he found himself alone with her, so knowing he was about to leave for a year, he felt he owed it to himself to commit her to memory. The summer wind tossed her pink hair back and forth around her shoulders, her bangs skirting in and out of her eyes, which were focused on him, hard and almost hateful. She wasn't much taller than she had been the last time they'd met on a moonlit road, but there was no question that the beautiful kunoichi in front of him had grown into a woman. He read it in the set of her jaw, the pout of her full pink lips, the way she stood with her hand on a hip that jutted out further than it used to. Long legs and a short skirt and stubborn as she had always been.

"I had a feeling you'd be leaving this way," she said, her voice quiet and accusing.

Sasuke kept his expression apathetic and replied, "Go back home. It's late, you should be asleep."

"That never worked before," she snapped. "And it won't work now. What's this, huh? What's this about requesting a year-long mission in _Oto?_"

So her mentor had told her. Oh, well. It saved him the trouble of having to do it himself.

"You _just_ came back!" she argued. "And you're just so ready to leave again, aren't you? After everything we did to bring you back home, it's not _enough_ for you?"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. This was the reaction he'd been expecting, but it didn't make it any easier to hear it coming from her.

"This is what's best for everyone," he said flatly. "I'm not leaving forever. It's a mission. Get out of the way."

He could have moved her. He could have sidestepped her and continued on his way. He could have flashstepped behind her and knocked her out, like last time. But things were different this time around, and at the very least, he could let her have her say. Tell it to her face, this time, that he was leaving and she couldn't stop him.

"What's best for everyone," Sakura returned stiffly, "is if you stay _here,_ where you _belong._"

"And that's what _you_ want, is it?" Sasuke demanded. "Don't kid yourself. You're terrified of me."

Far from crumpling at his accusation, Sakura's green eyes _flamed_ in the moonlight.

"_Terrified_?" she repeated, scoffing. "Don't kid _your_self. I'm uncomfortable around you, absolutely, and I don't really trust you, but I'm not _afraid_ of you."

She drew closer to him, her arms folded across her chest, her expression hurt.

"I was _afraid_ you were gonna do something like this again," she said quietly. "I had a feeling you weren't going to stay. That's why I could never…relax."

Suddenly Sakura's reactions to him in the past were starting to make more and more sense. Maybe he'd misinterpreted her discomfort to him. Maybe he'd just assumed that she was afraid he might snap and attack her again, when really she believed that he was going to leave her again. Maybe that was the real reason she'd never adjusted to his coming back.

"I know I hurt you," he said softly, the words sounding foreign and awkward to his ears. "I don't want to anymore. That's why I'm leaving."

"I believe you, Sasuke-kun," she said, invoking his old name, and then a tiny smile lit up her face. "I just had to be sure."

Then she tossed him a scroll. He caught it deftly in one hand, frowning, before opening it to read its contents.

His eyebrows raised when he realized that this was a mission scroll. The same that he had been issued earlier that day: a year-long recon mission in Oto. A two-man cell.

"You're coming with me," he said coolly.

And Sakura's smile widened as she revealed her mission pack to him. "I'm not gonna let you walk away from me again," she said. Then, her smile morphed into a playful, challenging smirk. "So I hope you can keep up with me."

Then she turned her back to him, revealing the white Haruno Clan circle splayed across her back as she made her way into the night, expecting him to follow. And follow he did, vindication settling in his bones as he realized what this was: the closing a circle. A window opening. A new opportunity, for him to earn Sakura's trust back the right way.

Fleeting images of an Uchiha fan on her back instead brought him a smirk to match hers. He had an entire year to work for _that_ dream.

He wasn't going to lose her again. And she _refused_ to lose him.

* * *

**note..** quick half-hour drabble...i like the idea of sasuke having to work for sakura's trust again, even if he never lost her love. ;)

xoxo Daisy.


	5. Never Gone

Pairing: Sasuke and Sakura

Song: Never Gone - Backstreet Boys

Genre: Romance

Description: Sometimes when God closes a door, He opens a window.

* * *

"I guess this is it," Sakura says, and he can tell by the tremor in her voice that she's about to cry, but trying not to.

He would smirk, if he could find something amusing in this, but he can't, so he doesn't. Instead he keeps his hands shoving deep, deep in the pockets of his jeans, and he keeps his face smooth and clear and there's nothing in his eyes but carefully-honed, immaculate stoicism.

She looks even tinier than usual with her duffel bag stuffed to the gills and slung across her shoulder. High-waisted shorts and a thin, summery cardigan and gladiator sandals and eyes too shiny to be real, she stands out same as always in the crowded airport terminal.

"You have everything you need?" she asks nervously. "I'm sure I forgot something. Something probably hugely important. And there's no way of going back for it now, and…"

"You're fine," he interjects swiftly, before she loses her head. And she is.

There's never been any girl anywhere with as bright a future as Sakura Haruno's.

"I mean…you'll call me, right? When your flight gets in? I'll probably get to Suna before you get to Oto, and…"

"I'll call you." And he will. Sasuke doesn't often make promises, but when he does, he sees that they're kept. And it won't do to have little Sakura worrying and fretting over nothing, so when he lands in his new city, he'll pick up the phone and let her know.

"Okay, good. And the reports said it's supposed to be good weather all over tonight, so there probably won't be too much turbulence."

There's a lot of foot traffic all around them. They've already begun boarding Sakura's plane, starting with Zone 1 and working back; in coach, she'll be called last, which gives them time, but not much. And that's always been their problem, Sasuke's and Sakura's: time, but never enough.

Never, until it's too late.

She tucks a strand of curly pink hair behind her ear and looks down at her blue-painted toes, and he feels something inside his chest tighten, like cooling metal. He knows it's coming, the dreaded 'goodbye,' and even if he's not one to show his emotions on his face, he sure as _hell_ doesn't want to hear that final word from _her._

"I'm…I'm gonna miss you, Sasuke," Sakura admits, her voice tiny. He knows that already, knows she'll miss him, but she says it like confessing a secret sin. Like she shouldn't really be saying it, and maybe she shouldn't. The most obvious statements don't need to be said, but he'd be lying if he said he doesn't like to hear her admit it.

The others are gone, and it's just them. Sasuke, on his way to college in Oto, Sakura, on her way to college in Suna, and five hundred miles apart. This should mean something – it has to mean something – but he can't bring himself to admit his own truths to Sakura. And what would be the point anyway, now? Of telling her he loves her?

Of telling her that he's loved her forever in silence and isolation? Of telling her that he knows she loves him, and they're on the same page, and everything's right now but the _timing?_

There's no heart in that. There's no kindness in that. There's only the sting of missed opportunities, and the dreaded announcement that Flight 822 to Suna is now seating Zone 3, and…

And then she's kissing him, unexpectedly, with no announcement. She just stands on her tiptoes to reach him, and she doesn't touch him with her hands. Just a slight, warm pressure on his lips, like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence, before she pulls back away, a smile on her face. The saddest smile in the world.

Sasuke blinks – he's stunned – but Sakura looks perfectly unaffected. Like it's the most natural thing in the world for her to be kissing him in the middle of a crowded airport, moments before they're set to depart for opposite ends of the universe.

And that's when it really, truly hits him:

This is _goodbye._

That's the only reason she'd have to kiss him. She's got nothing left to lose. In her eyes, this is it. This is _forever._ This is the end of Sasuke-and-Sakura, the quasi-friends, almost-lovers, something-mores who had everything but timing. She's closing the book on them, for good, taking with her one stolen kiss he didn't even have the chance to return, and when she turns away, it'll be towards a new future. One that could have – but won't ever, anymore – involved him.

And then his eyes narrow, and his jaw sets, and he's defiant and he's pissed and he says, "_No._"

Sakura raises her eyebrows in surprise. She doesn't understand his reaction, and why should she? He barely understands it himself. By all rights, this is what has to happen. She's going her way and he's going his, and they can't meet in the middle anymore so why try? It's best to do what Sakura's doing: severing bonds with a sweet kiss that tastes like summer surrender.

And it's not that he _can't_ do the same thing:

Just that he won't.

"No," Sasuke repeats. It's a rejection, but not of Sakura herself; it's a rejection of this _goodbye_ she's fashioning out of common sense and new horizons. He dismisses her noble attempt at making a clean break of things, before they involved messy things like hearts and emotions and pesky _love._ It's a blatant refusal of everything that makes sense on the surface, because Sasuke understands _them,_ and he knows that the only way they can ever make sense is when they're together.

"Sasuke, I…"

"_Last call for Flight 822, service to Suna, now seating Zone 3,_" calls one of the attendants, and she's got to _leave_ now, but not before Sasuke gets her to see the sense that has him reeling.

"Don't say goodbye. That ain't what this is."

"Well, I'll be…"

"You'll be waiting for me," he tells her flatly. No room for argument, because you should never argue truth. "And I'll be waiting for you. Five years ago, you told me 'forever'. And that doesn't end today."

Then _he_ kisses _her,_ because that's only fair. And now that he's ready for it, he injects a little bit more into it, a little more honesty, a little more bitterness, a little more acceptance, because it's never too late to reach out and take the happy not-ending life is stupid enough to offer you. And this time, she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him flush against her, and there's no space and no time and no crowd and no line and no flights in opposite directions to different time zones.

"Okay," Sakura breathes against his lips when they pull back, just slightly. He rests his forehead against her forehead, her bangs tickling his nose, and she says again, "Okay, Sasuke. This isn't goodbye. This is…"

"_Last call for Flight 822, service to Suna!"_

And Sakura doesn't cry, she _giggles,_ because she's _happy,_ and Sasuke made her that way. She kisses him one last time, a quick peck on his lips that leaves him burning for more, and she finishes, "This is…I hope you come visit me next month."

And Sasuke smiles, a small one, not like the bright, shiny one spread across her face, and he nods.

A promise, silent but _titanium, _the way their bond has always been.

It isn't goodbye. It won't ever be. Because she promised him forever, and forever starts here: right after the end.

* * *

**note..** i like, love the backstreet boys. i don't even care. and this song, never gone, was my class's unofficial graduation song back in high school. actually devastating, if you're like me and loved the shit out of high school. but yeah, you know me and my omnipresent dramatic airport sasuke/sakura scenes.

phillies won tonight, btdubs. and downtown dom brown, you can get it whenever you want. 8 homers in 8 games. SEX.

love youuuu.

xoxo Daisy :)


	6. Back to Your Heart

Pairing: Sasuke and Sakura

Genre: Romance

Song: Back to Your Heart - Backstreet Boys

Description: Sasuke tries to earn back something that's been his from the start.

* * *

It starts with flowers on her doorstep.

To be precise, one. One flower, every night, and she never sees him do it. He's fast and he's stealthy and when he doesn't want to be seen, he won't be. But when she returns to her apartment from the hospital or training or a mission or a party, it's to a slender pink Cosmos flower on the Welcome mat to her door.

She remembers the language of flowers, taught to her as a girl in the Academy, and knows that in Greek, Cosmos represent beauty and ornamentality.

They mean something very different to her, though, and that he remembers touches her heart in a way the pretty pink petals can't.

…

It would be enough, the flowers, but he wouldn't be Sasuke if he did anything by halves.

If Sakura was expecting him to flounce back into Konoha as disdainful as he'd been as a child of her and her abilities, she finds herself utterly and entirely confused.

Because what Sasuke brings back with him (besides her heart, sloppily mended with bandaids and still bruised in some places), is a healthy respect for who she is now.

It's a respect that's been hard-earned, won in the sweat on her brow, the blood on her back, the tears on her pillow; it's years and years of cultivation, of practice, of trial and error and failure and success and trainingtrainingtraining until she can't sleep or eat or breathe. It's target practice and healing jutsu and smashing the world with dainty flower hands and smiling through all the blood and gore. It's survival. It's heroism. It's…

It's something not even Naruto could ever properly appreciate. Not Kakashi-sensei. Not Sai.

No, approval comes from the unlikeliest source.

Sasuke Uchiha has become her _sparring partner._

And when he fights her (and it's every day they're both in the same village, he makes sure of it), he doesn't pull his punches. He doesn't hold himself back. He activates his Sharingan (beautiful, eternal, the way she hopes he wll be) and when he cuts her, he doesn't stop to give her a chance to heal.

He doesn't disrespect her by assuming she can't handle him.

It's a warped, twisted, monstrous version of the alone time she'd always craved with him as a child, but Sakura isn't a child anymore.

She's a kunoichi. To her very core, everything about her and everything she is. And Sasuke gives her the greatest gift she's ever received, because he understands that.

(And when he reaches out a hand to help her bruisedandbleedingandtired off the grass, it's all she can do not to smile like the sun.)

…

She begins to trust Sasuke. Just the way she did as a child, and then a million miles beyond that.

It is a curious thing, to know that not six months ago, they'd faced each other with murder in their eyes. She still wakes up in the middle of the night unable to breathe as she remembers the intent that led her feet to him, the shadowy uchiwa fan sprawled across his back as her kunai came within inches of his spinal column. She remembers the crackle of electricity and the anger in his eyes as he unleashed his Chidori.

People think that was their breaking point, but what they don't realize is that she's blamed herself for it every second since it happened.

Sasuke hadn't sought her out to kill her. Sasuke hadn't turned on his comrades and given her false information to lower her defenses. Sasuke hadn't invoked their murky past as a weapon against her.

He'd moved in self-defense. He'd read her movements, realized she meant to kill him, and responded.

So to know that they could have recovered from that, from evolving from classmates to teammates to maybe-friends to avowed enemies, and back to teammates again, sometimes blows Sakura's mind.

But Sasuke, while he respects her abilities, still protects her in battle. He has her back, and he trusts her to have his. He doesn't take on all the danger himself anymore – she can damn sure stand on her own two feet now – but he doesn't abandon her the way one thinks he might.

They're a team, really and truly; it's not just Naruto and Sasuke, or Sasuke and Naruto and Kakashi-sensei. It's all of them. Seamless and trusting, a perfectly imperfect collision of talent and trust that was laid on the fire but never burned all the way through.

She slowly forgives Sasuke, and she slowly forgives herself. And it's a gift and a gesture that she can freely return. She will not stand behind him with a shaking kunai, she will not stand behind him to let him handle all the risks and reap all the rewards.

But she will always, _always_ have his back.

…

For all of his gestures, though, Sakura is slow to understand the motivation behind them.

Very rarely has she ever thought herself to be anything significant to Sasuke. Perhaps he'd considered her a friend when they were genin, perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he'd thought about her while he was away, perhaps he hadn't. Perhaps he was glad to see her when he came back, perhaps he wasn't.

She knows those times are behind them, though, because she is the only one he attempts to see with any measure of regularity. And she's very, very busy because she's very, very necessary, but still he gives her his time, and takes what little she can spare for him.

She realizes as time goes by, time filled with secret flowers he'll never admit to leaving, and respect she's given without ever knowing he's always held it, and late night walks through Konoha because that's the only time he can see her, that she's becoming someone important to Sasuke.

Her role is, perhaps, not as clearly defined as Naruto's. Naruto is his best friend. Naruto is his greatest rival. Naruto is the reason Sasuke's home. He's never really relinquished his bond with Sasuke, never had to change it the way she did, so who she is to Sasuke isn't so simple to enunciate.

A friend, certainly.

More than that, maybe.

A lover? Not quite. Not _yet._ But Sakura reads the signs.

She notices the way his fingers linger (burningburningfire) on her stomach during spars. She sees the flare of his nostrils when she steps too close, and sometimes the back of his neck turns red if she says something too silly and flirty.

And she knows she's the only girl he ever seeks out for company.

(She thrills at that, and she despairs also. Because she can't be enough for him.)

Which puzzles her all the more, to understand that Sasuke finds her attractive, enjoys her company, values her opinions, respects her abilities, and wants her around. All the pieces are there, but she can't quite make them fit.

That he loves her never occurs to her, because underneath the diamond spine and the sunny smile, underneath the mountain-bending strength and the life-saving hands and the never-give-up attitude that's made her the best of the best…

She's still a little girl with a banged-up heart and she can never, ever, ever see herself.

…

It's early evening when he admits it.

Mid-summer and very hot. They trained early in the morning and now they sit on his back porch and there's green tea between them. She leans back on the steps, her elbows taking the weight, staring up happily at the gathering stars, thinking how this is lovely, this is peaceful, and she could really get used to this.

And Sasuke, sitting next to her, turns to her and says, "You don't get it, do you."

Her temper is quick to rise, but Sakura's learned from her mistakes, and she thinks before she speaks. Sasuke has a reason for everything he does, every word he says; he isn't mean or rude just for the hell of it. And his words are nasty but she can read the frustration in his face as clear as day.

"What don't I get?" she asks finally.

Sasuke shakes his head, messy black hair falling in his eyes before he drains the last of his tea. "I'm not trying hard enough, then," he murmurs.

Sakura's confused. He's talking to himself. He's not making any sense. Maybe it's the heat.

He looks at her again and there's an intensity in his expression she's only ever seen on the battlefield. It intimidates and electrocutes her and she wonders what's gotten into him that he's acting like this, but before she can ask any questions, he asks one of her.

"What can I do?"

"Sasuke-kun, I…"

"Tell me," he demands, harsh when he means to be gentle. His cheeks color because he's not used to this kind of talk, but he tries anyway, and Sakura feels herself come apart inside. "Tell me what to do to get your heart back."

Tsunade-shishou would kill her for being so brainless, because it's in this moment, after days and weeks and months and almost a year of stupidity, that Sakura finally realizes what Sasuke's been doing, and why. Nothing – not the flowers, not the walks, not the quiet conversation under cover of moonlight, not the polished kunai in her weapons pouch, not her favorite tea this evening – makes sense until she hears it from Sasuke's mouth.

And it's like dying and being reborn. Something new, something fresh. Terrifying and exhilarating and exactly what she's always needed to hear.

And Sakura smiles, and Sakura rests her head on Sasuke's shoulder and breathes in his scent and Sakura is honest with him, and with herself, for the first time in a very long time.

"…you always had it, Sasuke-kun."

* * *

**note..** well i know i said something to the effect of, ' i need a fucking break from this stupid site because of all the shithead anonymous reviewers ' last night but then i got to thinking about the 99.9 percent of you who are lovely. and that i enjoy writing and i enjoy when you enjoy what i write. so upon further reflection, i was being a seeyounexttuesday and it's unfair to deprive myself of something i like doing, just because some stupid pancreas out there in bumblefuck has access to a computer and uses it to be a scumsuckingroadwhore. it's just really hard to wrap my head around that, y'all. spreading negativity into the world for no reason. i don't know. i think i'm too much of a hippie or something.

ANYWAY. hope you enjoyed this, my humblest apology chapter. if you did, let me know. IF YOU DIDN'T, DO NOT TELL ME ABOUT IT. WRITE SOME ANTIJINNYSKEANS DIARY AT HOME AND leave me alone please i don't care about you, thanks.

does anybody here watch deadly women? i can't stop.

xoxo daisy :)


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